PROVIDENCE — Decades, perhaps centuries, have passed since Rhode Islanders were fined for swearing, committing adultery, or racing horses on the highway.

But penalties for those crimes, as well as failing to speak English, dueling, stealing chickens and removing seaweed from Barrington, remain codified in state law, even if they haven’t been enforced in ages.

Rep. John Edwards, D-Tiverton, has been on a mission to cleanse Rhode Island General Laws of archaic language since 2013, when he first proposed creating a special committee, similar to one created in Kansas, to comb through the statute for out-of-date sections to repeal.

This “Joint Committee of the Repealer” has never made it out of committee, so this year Edwards is taking a new approach to the issue and introducing individual bills for each section of antiquated text in his crosshair.

As of Sunday, that meant around two dozen bills representing the “low-lying fruit” of archaic statute, with more expected to come throughout this year’s legislative session.

“There’s hundreds,” Edwards said about archaic pieces of law. “The dueling, the horse racing, the seaweed; those are the low-lying fruit. In my journey through the laws I have found more.”

Two of the repeal bills, the Barrington seaweed removal ban and one related to the former Goat Island torpedo station, received a hearing in the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee last week.

The House Judiciary Committee is slated to take up five more Edwards repeal bills on Tuesday, including three that would strike prohibitions on different aspects of settling disagreements through gentleman’s duels.

Tracing the history of all the old provisions in Rhode Island’s lengthy General Laws is not always easy.

While many pieces of text have origins in the 18th century, Edwards said the paper trail often stops at 1896, when the legislature undertook a major statutory rewrite.

One old law Edwards said he was alerted to this year is titled Americanization Schools and required everyone older than 16 who can’t read, write or speak in English to attend 200 hours of classes or face fines of $1-$20 per absence.

This 1919 law is an example, Edwards said, of dormant language on hot-button subjects that could potentially be used for political purposes if it is allowed to fester on the books.

“If we have these old laws lingering, why not clean them up?” Edwards said. “If someone uses an old dueling law to get off in a killing, how terrible would that be? We have modern laws that deal with shootings.”

Other old rules on Edwards’ chopping block prohibit:

— Negative political fliers unless they include the name of the author and two members of the campaign they support.